Charles Brett

Sir Charles Edward Bainbridge Brett, KBE, CBE (30 October 1928 - 19 December 2005), was a Northern Irish solicitor, journalist, author and founding member, and first chairman, of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society (UAHS). He was known to many simply as Charlie Brett. Early life and education Brett was born in Holywood, County Down, into a long line of solicitors, the family firm being L'Estrange and Brett, based in Belfast. He was a partner in this firm from 1954 until 1994. He was educated at Aysgarth School, Rugby School and New College, Oxford, where he was President of the Poetry Society and was a friend of Dylan Thomas. Career Between 1949 and 1950, he worked in France as a journalist with the Continental Daily Mail, where he is said to have mixed in anarchist and Trotskyite circles. In 1956, The 8th Earl of Antrim invited Brett to join the Northern Ireland Committee of the National Trust. On finding there were no books written to prepare himself for this, Brett resolved to write the necessary volumes. In 1967, he became the first chairman of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society (UAHS), founded with, amongst others, Lady Dunleath. Brett served as chairman for ten years and then as President from 1979 until his death.